Drop it Like its Pokot Pt. 1

I am deeply sorry that it has been so long since I have posted. I was in Pokot and think that I got stung by a wicked mosquito. Not one that carried malaria, but one that carried Writer’s Block.
But here we go…
So I just got back from West Pokot. You know, where the tribe that’s 400 years back lives, the Pokot, and they have 7-10 wives just so they can maybe have a few kids because the mortality rate is so high. You know, that place where they were recently introduced to clothes, and just 3 or 4 years ago the men wore no clothing. Still not clicking? We’ll it’s the same place where they shot all missionaries or white man that tried to enter 5 years ago….Yea I had no idea that such a place existed either.
I didn’t know that the RAV4 that the City Harvest team and I traveled in last Tuesday would serve not only as a 4WD vehicle but also a time machine. We could have traveled back a good 400 years to the days of the early American settlers first encountering the various Native American tribes of the East Coast.

The journey there was quite an interesting one. We made a safari stop in Nakuru where we saw thousands and thousands of flamingos, a few lions, many zebras, etc. The most shocking sight was yet to come though.
They speak of the road being terrible in Africa, which they are, but for me I got to catch up on some z’s. With all the ups and downs, right and lefts, and slides in the mud, my mind thought it was being rocked to sleep. And I slept well surprisingly. I even woke up many times with drool all over my shirt for my mouth had been bumped open and the slobber had shaken out like a Gungan king. Intriguing, I know.

It took us 3 days to make it to West Pokot, a province only 300 miles from Nairobi. The rains delayed us a great bit and we couldn’t get through many parts until the sun baked the earth dry. We finally made it there by Thursday.

Our mission in West Pokot was to establish contact with this warrior tribe, the Pokot, share the Good News, the Whole Gospel (Actually, that is a arrogant statement to say that the Gospel we were preaching was the Whole Gospel. There are so many layers in the scriptures and such complexities that our imperfections couldn’t possible bring every aspect of this Good News. More to come on that later, for I think I’ve exceeded my limit in this parenthesis).
I actually just wanted to take that revelation and give it its own paragraph. So here.
Maybe instead of the Whole Gospel I’ll call it the Transcending Gospel for it transcends over the then, the now, and the future. In Africa and in parts of America, it seems as if we leave a good bit of the Gospel out. We focus only on getting people saved for the next life. What about today?
Edward, the great rabbi that he is, says many times when we focus only on getting them to repent and ask for Jesus that we’re bringing them out of one hell only to leave them in another. We are to bring the Kingdom NOW. We are to bring Heaven to Earth.
So this Transcending Gospel seeks to not only invite people to Heaven tomorrow, but also to bring Heaven to them TODAY.

So, to finally answer why we went to Pokot: to bring this Transcending Gospel. Explaining that, we came to preach the Good News and invite people to Christ, and to bring them the source of life, water. We came to establish contact and tell them that we are bringing a bore hole, a well.(One which has been funded by thee holy and wonderful UBC)
A brief bit of Pokot history: they have been a nomadic people historically, because they live off the meat of the land. They’ve recently learned the beauty of cattle grazing, but live in a very dry area. To survive, like every other human being, they must have water. Many had a great source just a few kilometers away from where we were, a river, in Uganda but were recently forced out by the Ugandan Army. Many lives were lost, many homes were destroyed.
So now, after the raids, 2000 Pokot live in the surrounding area we served at, and they all share the same bore hole. 2000 people, one small well to supply for all. Some walk up to 5 miles each day to collect water. And with such the great influx of people, the well is experiencing great stress and could break any day.

City Harvest seeks to bring a source of Water that will quench the soul, by bringing a source of water that will quench the thirst of peace in their hard lives of suffering.

Many have recently been displaced, and have no place to live. The people know very little about farming, for there isn’t any water to water the crops. And livestock(cattle and goats) isn’t plentiful because there isn’t any water. The people are hungry. The people are thirsty.
The people live the same way now as they did hundreds of years ago (except they now wear clothes, which they didn’t do as of 5 years ago). There is no room for enlightenment because all their time is spent on getting to the next meal. There hasn’t been any enlightenment brought in because these people have truly been forgotten.

And as I mentioned, they are warriors. No need to fear though, because this sect of the tribe was the most aggressive, the strongest, and the mightiest. We had no reason fear in case of a raid, for these great warriors would protect us. Those village raids happen quite frequently. People really want cattle because they really want to eat, so stealing cattle in violence is another popular evil amongst the Pokot.

With all these things though, with all these great tragedies, I still wasn’t fully present for the first day or so in Pokot. It all seemed like a movie. It all seemed a little bit unreal.
I also was kinda bored. We were sitting around a lot in meetings that were carried out mostly in Swahili and Pokot. And, I wanted to have fun.
I think I had fallen under the spell of seeking and entertaining Mission Trip. The ones where we are entertained by the people, or are entertained by ourselves. We always want these ventures to be adventures, where we’re always having fun and feeling righteous for our pilgrimage to wherever we are serving.
But many times the best possible thing we can do, is just be there. The best possible thing we can do is just to witness, to see, and to breathe it all in. Breathe in the pain. Breathe in the suffering. Breathe in the evil. For if we are fully present in these situations, then they stay with us. Then we remember the smell of poverty. Then we remember the sight of malnutrition. Then we hear the cry of the oppressed, just as God hears it (Exodus 2)
I think I finally realized I was in Pokot the last night we were there. We sat around the fire waiting for our goat to cook, and heard the story of Apakamoi Rensen. The sounds started rubbing dirt into my eyes so I could see. My blindness to the suffering was healed and I could finally feel. I could finally experience. I could finally hear the cry of the oppressed.